Sister, which was presented by the young team of producer Marija Dimitrova from List Productio and debuting director Dina Duma, will benefit from in-kind post production services to the value of 25,000 EUR from The Post Republic in Berlin. The film about two coming of age teenage girls is representative of the work of a new generation of young female filmmakers emerging in Macedonia.

Voroshilovgrad produced by the Ukranian company Limelite and directed by Yaroslav Ldygin, was chosen by popular vote of the connecting cottbus participants to receive the coco Best Pitch Award, which comes with a check for 1,500 EUR and accreditation to the Producers Network at the Marché du Film in Cannes.

A new Midpoint Scholarship Award, a cooperation between cocoLab and the Midpoint script development programme, went to Alive in Moscow by Grigore Becket. The award enables this film project to participate in the Midpoint Feature Launch professional script and development programme for emerging film professionals.

Ten projects were presented at the pitching forum, which moved to larger quarters this year, with room for to 50% more attendees. Nearly 200 participants were accredited to coco this year, an increase of 25%. And, underscoring the strong bond between the Cottbus festival and coco, five previous coco projects were selected to screen at the Cottbus Film Festival, including three films in the main competition.